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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935485">What An Awful Fate For My Mother That She Bore A Son</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda'>Rhonda</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Gore, Canon-Typical Unwanted Sexual Advances, Canonical Character Death, Cutting, F slur, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gender Dysphoria, Hair Dyeing, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Medical, Mostly Canon Compliant, Pining, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, T slur, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Transmisogyny</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:27:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,855</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Grelle takes her life, but isn't satisfied with the results.</p><p>William wont admit that he's obsessed with his flamboyant classmate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>William T. Spears/Grell Sutcliff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I Can Take Or Leave It If I Please</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter deals heavily with themes of gender dysphoria, depression, transmisogyny, and suicide. You could skip it if you'd rather just get to the Grelliam, I won't be too torn up over it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He slipped on the simple white dress he had spent the last of his life savings on. Buying it had been one of the hardest things he had ever done. It had taken days of walking past the storefront and when he finally had built up enough courage he fumbled with the lines he made up about it being a gift for some girl he was sweet on. The tailor had been kind enough and didn’t seem to even pay him much mind at all. Not many people ever did pay much mind to Grelle Sutcliff.</p><p> </p><p>The dress didn’t look anything like the one his mother had worn, but as he looked into the dirty mirror he pretended that it did. He remembered how handsome he had felt the day he snuck into his mother’s wardrobe to try it on. It was the one and only time his father had ever truly beaten him, but it wasn’t the only time he’d called him a faggot. Ordinarily, these kinds of memories would cause Grelle to lock up in panic, but here and now they merely filled him with an odd sense of certainty. </p><p> </p><p>The bath was drawn, and getting colder by the second. As he hurried over to it he slipped on the floor and smashed the front of his thighs into the rim of the tub. Of course, even this he would fuck up, one last little mistake to mark the end of his mistake of a life. His thighs would bruise tomorrow, but that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. He stepped over the edge and gingerly lowered his body into the tepid water. The white dress about him bloomed out like it was billowing in the wind in slow motion. His long mousy brown hair similarly spread out weightlessly as it made contact with the surface. Grelle looked around the room to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything.</p><p> </p><p>He thought about the tiny old lady that he rented this room from, he wondered how long it would take for her to discover his body like this. He hardly ever talked to her and left his rent payments in envelopes that he slid under her door. She’d probably only come to check on him after this month’s rent never arrived. He felt bad, cheating her out of a month’s rent, plus however long it would take her to find a new tenant for the apartment, especially knowing that someone had killed themselves in it. He left no note, there wasn’t anyone he had to say anything to. If anyone was curious they’d only need to look at his dress to understand that he was a fag who took the easy way out. </p><p> </p><p>He really hoped hell wasn’t real. </p><p> </p><p>As he lined up the blade with his veins, he worried that he might faint at the sight of his blood. He closed his eyes and did it. Puncturing his pasty flesh was like the releasing of pressure from a bottle of red wine that had aged a little too long, and he sank into the tub with relief. It hurt terribly but Grelle was used to pain. The bathwater slowly took on the color of his blood as it pumped out. Red, such an awful color. It was the color of pain and violence. The color of the evil that men did. The color of the passions that he was incapable of pursuing. He remembered his boyhood crush. A neighboring farm boy with a toothy smile and a seemingly immutable look of mischief about him. He remembered how they had played games by the creek in the woods. How they had sat on the half-rotten log dipping their feet into the cold mountain water. Grelle’s feet felt very cold, just like that day when he whispered his secret into his best friend’s ear. How strangely he had looked at her when she confessed her feelings for him. When she said how she felt that God had made a mistake making her a boy. It wasn’t a dark day then, but her memory of the day was getting darker and darker. She couldn’t remember his face but for the discomfort that had been in his eyes. And then Grelle realized she was truely dying and she closed her eyes and stopped thinking.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She woke up in a fuzzy cool white room that didn’t look like much of anything she had ever seen. She couldn’t remember what she was. Was she a person? She- no, <em> he </em> had memories of being a person. Why was the room so mushy? A fuzzy man in an equally fuzzy white coat approached him and told him in a kindly voice that he was dead. He told him that because he had killed himself he would spend eternity as some sort of psychopomp. Eternity, the man had said. Grelle looked down at his body, the same as it always was, there had to have been some kind of mistake. He wanted to go back to the nothing. When he was in the nothing he didn’t have a body. Being corporeal as... <em> this </em> was a torture not even the lowliest demons in hell would inflict on the greatest of sinners for even a moment, let alone eternity.</p><p> </p><p>The man told Grelle that he would be wanted for orientation and eventually take placement exams. Then he shoved a pair of spectacles on Grelle’s face, which brought the horror of the world into an absolute immediacy through its focusing. </p><p>He looked into a small mirror he found on a table next to the bed he realized he was lying on. His face had changed but it still wasn’t his. Now he had bright green eyes instead of the pretty hazel ones that he had always considered his favorite feature. Really, the only feature of himself that he had liked. Everyone in the room had green eyes. Even the handsome man with the kindly voice, who was now in focus and not fuzzy at all, had bright green eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Grelle told the man that he needed some fresh air, and asked if he could have a chance to go outside, he knew there had to be an outside to this place since through a nearby window Grelle could see an immaculate garden basking in a bright sun. Grelle, that was still his name, huh? Would always be his name? The awful man name that he had been given the day he was born a man? The same name he had when his best friend decided to stop playing with him at the creek. The same name that his father had called a faggot. The same name that took his own life rather than go on with the pain of being what he was.</p><p> </p><p>Outside of the room Grelle found a stairwell which he ascended. He looked down at his feet as he climbed the stairs and noticed he was wearing a man’s pair of black dress shoes and a man’s pair of black slacks and a man’s white dress shirt buttoned with a man’s black tie and a man’s black suit jacket. Grelle climbed faster. He reached the top and quickly fretted around the floor looking for some kind of way to ascend further. Right before he felt like he would explode he finally found a strange looking door at the end of a small flight of stairs with a sign that said "ROOF ACCESS." He practically sprinted up them and through the door, bursting out into such a bright and beautiful day that it froze him with its sublimity.</p><p> </p><p>He breathed in fresh crisp cool air that smelled faintly of flowers and mown grass and something else that he couldn’t quite place but he was sure was a kind of food. It was quiet, but he faintly heard the sounds of Cicadas and foot traffic and peers calling out to one another in the courtyard below. Above, the sky was the deepest truest blue he had ever seen, the kind of color that defied categorization, one that could never exist in any painter’s pallet for it would never allow itself to be captured.</p><p> </p><p>Grelle looked to the edge of the roof and walked towards it, not even slowing or hesitating once he reached it. And the ground came up to meet him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The kindly voiced man was talking to a woman. They were laughing. </p><p>“You’d actually be surprised how uncommon it is for new recruits to do that. Yeah, most people don’t even mean to die the first time you know, they’re just looking for attention. More than anything they want someone to notice that something’s wrong with their life and care that it’s wrong. I mean I’m not ashamed to admit that’s how I ended up here, even if a lot of people are. And even then most of the time it’s just a crisis, like a one off thing. It’s pretty rare we get a man who really truly thoroughly just wants to be dead.”</p><p> </p><p>Grelle was on the bed again. He grabbed the pair of spectacles from the table he knew was there. Clear rubbery tubes full of liquid were stringing down into his arms, into the same place where he had cut himself what felt like a lifetime ago. The jacket was gone and his sleeves were partially rolled up with his pants having been replaced by some stiff bandages. So, at least the suit was partially off which was a small victory, and at that thought he began laughing. Giggles at first, but before he knew it he had tears streaming down his face. </p><p> </p><p>Wow, there was no escape from this, huh? Really now? He would <em> spend </em> the <em> rest </em> of <em> everything </em> like <em> this</em>. Nothing would ever change. Nothing mattered.</p><p> </p><p>Nothing mattered.</p><p> </p><p>But if nothing mattered, then what was there to be afraid of? It wasn’t like someone might beat him to death for being a sissy, and if they did it was a win-win right? What did it matter if people didn’t want to be around him- no, <em> her. </em> Grelle knew her soul was that of a girl, even if her body didn’t, even if this awful terrible world didn’t. So what did it matter if people didn’t want to be around her? She was already lonely, isolated, and socially atomized in life, what did it matter if boys didn’t come to meet her at the creek, she’d go to them. What did it matter if she was hurt for how she dressed? Grelle was used to pain.</p><p> </p><p>The kindly voiced man and the woman were staring at her. She was ready, ready to face whatever eternity brought. She jumped out of bed so fast that she immediately got lightheaded and collapsed. She’d have fallen to the floor if it wasn’t for the handsome kindly voiced man in the white coat who caught her, she looked up into his striking green eyes and swooned. The rubbery tubes had wrenched out during her stunt and now she was bleeding all over the man’s nice white coat. Red, red blood, such a beautiful hue. It looked incredible on him and she had to let him know it.</p><p> </p><p>“My blood sure looks good on you, I wonder what else of me would look good on you,” she cooed. Admittedly a clunky line but she’d get the hang of this whole ‘being extroverted’ thing with practice. He looked confused for a second then shuddered, letting her fall the rest of the way to the ground. “Loving the view from down here,” she called out as her head hit tile.</p><p> </p><p>“Sir, are you okay? You’ve, uh- lost a lot of blood. Perhaps you need some more rest, this transitional phase can be kind of awkward,” he said as his face returned to its usual look of empathetic concern.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh don’t I know it doc. My whole life’s been transitional phase after transitional phase. I’ve never known a man so concerned with my transitions, you’re a real gentleman to care so much for a lady you’ve just met.”</p><p> </p><p>“...Right. I’m actually starting to wonder if you didn’t fall feet-first. Let’s get you back in bed so I can take a look at your head there.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’ve only just met and you’re already trying to get me in bed, oh you’re lucky I’m a lady who loves such a pretty pair of eyes,” Grelle said whilst shakily trying to rise to her feet. The kindly voiced man seemed to ignore that and helped Grelle back into her bed while the woman he had been talking to watched on with an intense look of unease.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, let me see here,” he leaned in gripping her head with an apprehensive tenderness. She lured him into a false sense of security before trying to pop up for a quick peck on the cheek, which he ultimately managed to dodge. “Yep! I’m sure you just need some rest!” he said, quickly pulling away. “I have some other patients I need to attend to at the moment, so... I’m just going to leave now.” He left the room and took the woman with him. As they left they began hurriedly muttering to each other. About what? That was something that Grelle was way past caring about. If it was about her, she would let them talk.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>She closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillow as the room got quiet and she started to hear those soft summery noises again from outside her open window. If this was a dying dream, it was an important one. If it was real, Grelle Sutcliff resolved that she would spend her eternity being as faggy as she possibly could, to make up for lost time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Been dealing with suicidal ideation a lot lately and I think writing this helped for what it's worth.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. All I've Got Are Coca Cola Candies And I'm Not Looking For No Rooftop Handies From Some Fucking Tranny Sport Ground Bully Who Despite My Protestations Will Absolutely Not Stop Fucking With Me I Don't Know I Don't Fucking Know All I Want To Do Is Be Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They cut his hair. When he had first met him; well, met was the wrong word, perhaps encountered; Grelle Sutcliff had a head of long mousy brown hair that fell past his shoulders. Grelle was, for lack of a better term, in the same incoming class at the academy as he; and he, along with the rest of his peers, had been subjected to his rakish flamboyance as they attended orientation.</p><p> </p><p>His behavior wouldn’t have been out of place at a cabaret or perhaps a political rally, but being in a business assembly amongst peers and before superiors it was. William wondered if the man had ever been in a business meeting before. William wondered if he truly considered anyone to be his superior with his flagrant disregard for authority. And of course there was the matter of Grelle having worn the Academy’s female uniform rather than the male’s. It was very strange, as the class assembled for orientation and he passed by Grelle he genuinely mistook him for one of the women, in between the long hair, the women’s clothes, and the make up he had slathered on his face. It wasn’t until he spoke that many realized he wasn’t. Many of those assembled had laughed assuming he was doing some kind of comedic act, but William had kept quiet, unable to see the comedy in interrupting such an important presentation. Grelle had seemed to eat the attention up and kept making more and more audacious comments until the senior educational reapers forcibly removed him from the auditorium. He didn’t know what they did to him, but he had never seen Grelle wearing the female uniform after that. William liked to pretend that it was because Grelle had learned the error of his ways, but he knew that wasn’t true and he had long since realized he was terrible at lying to himself.</p><p> </p><p>Now his long smooth hair was gone too, and only Grelle’s make up remained to broadcast his garish personality to all those who looked upon him. William too had initially assumed it was some sort of bizarre act, but after taking classes with the man it really did seem as though that was his true nature. He really didn’t understand why anyone would want to pretend to be a woman, perhaps it was the mystery of that which caused his mind to linger on him during times when William was left with his thoughts. He wasn’t so sure though.</p><p> </p><p>By all accounts Grelle had been modest and clumsy in life, but none of those stories described the flamboyant and deadly-efficient man William now took his classes with. During sparring matches he was almost sadistic in the ways his training scythe bit into his opponents flesh, and their instructor often had to pry him off his opponent after he had knocked them to the ground and the whistle was blown. Grelle would just laugh and make some bawdy comment about his sparing partner’s body before sulking off to the corner occasionally trying to make chatter with his peers like nothing happened. William wondered how Grelle had more friends than him. William never matched up with Grelle having not tested into the same level as him. As he’d watch them from atop the bleachers while he did his extracurricular research, he’d get curious about the kind of off color comment Grelle might make about his own body.</p><p> </p><p>William had never been intrinsically concerned with his appearance. He kept his face shaved and his hair gelled as a matter of maintaining his appearance in court. Making an impression, to his contempt, was as much about how you looked as how sound your rhetoric was. But now he’d find himself looking in the mirror interrogating his eyebrows, the skin on his face, the way his chest looked. Was he fit for his new career? If he had known, he might have spent the last few months of his life at a gymnasium. He didn’t know whether he was a handsome man or not. He had never understood the desires of women. There had been women in his life, sure, but they came to him irregardless of his effort or comprehension of their motives. Even his wife had been a mystery. There had been times when he’d simply done nothing and she’d still weep over him.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered if he’d be expected to find a wife in this life as he had been in the last. The social conventions of this world eluded him as often as they perplexed him, but not nearly as often as they annoyed him. Grelle merely threw a spanner into the works of his already tenuous grasp onto the etiquette of this place. As such William spent most of his time alone.</p><p> </p><p>William took his lunches by himself on the roof of the Academy’s main building. The asocial nature that had left him so isolated as to eventually contribute to his doom hadn’t changed or evolved postmortem. He ate his sandwich in silence as he annotated over his class notes. </p><p>William T. Spears, Esq. it read at the top of the page. He was debating whether or not to drop the Esq. from his name. He didn’t believe his attorney’s license carried on after death and he certainly didn’t have a mastery of Reaper Law yet. But, he had worked hard to put those three characters on… on his tombstone. The thought of leaving them behind left him even more melancholy than he already was. He looked out across the roof towards the piercing blue sky and the few fluffy white clouds. It was always beautiful here. Much nicer than England, but he couldn’t help but miss it irregardless. He supposed he wouldn’t be away from it too long, once he graduated he’d be able to visit London again. He would never say it aloud but everything here was too stark, too neat, too orderly. He had always kept himself and his work so prim and proper because it gave him a sense of control, and more importantly a sense of superiority. Here things were already too much like him and his talents for professionalism were less exceptional. Perhaps that’s why his marks were slipping.</p><p> </p><p>He heard the door to the roof open up behind him and he turned around curious, almost no one ever came up here during the lunch periods. He almost didn’t recognise Grelle without his hair. It was cut short, really short, almost as though it were retribution for the audacity to ever have hair at all. He seemed surprised to find someone else there, but the disquiet only flashed for an instant before his face returned to his trademark grin. Much to William’s dismay Grelle was briskly striding over toward his table. Whatever Grelle had come up here for it had now been superseded by his desire to interact with William on some level. They really had never talked before and he wasn’t sure that Grelle even knew who he was, a suspicion that was validated immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“What was it... no, don’t tell me, I’ve got this,” he said as he dropped into the seat opposite William, lazily pointing his finger in his direction. “Thomas?” </p><p> </p><p>“No, my name is William T. Spears Es-” he cut himself off before committing himself either way to the affectation. Luckily Grelle either didn’t pick up on it or care.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I said, Willy. We’re in the same scrivening class right?”</p><p>“Please don’t call me that,” they were actually in almost all their classes together but William wasn’t about to bring that up.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh no! Someone is calling you something you don’t care for, what a tragedy,” Grelle said with what William assumed was faux concern, but his voice was so distinctly lacking in any hint of malice that he wasn’t sure. “Sorry, I make it a policy not to learn the names of the nerds and dweebs we go to school with, I hope I didn’t cause any offense.”</p><p> </p><p>As a matter of fact it did cause offense but now William strongly believed Grelle wasn’t being genuine. William decided to not say anything. He would wait out Grelle the same way he waited out all the other annoying peers who tried to make contact with him. An awkward silence gently fell over the two, at least William hoped it was awkward, awkward enough to bore Grelle into leaving. Grelle just leaned back in his chair in a way that William assumed was incredibly uncomfortable and looked passively at his red painted nails. His posture caused his untucked shirt to become even more hopelessly untucked to the point that William saw flashes of the man’s belly. It was flat and the color of cream and it had a thin trail of hairs that descended down his stomach and into his belted slacks. William looked back down at his notes.</p><p> </p><p>“So, what are you in for?” Grelle yawned and somehow leaned even further back in his chair in a way that looked even more uncomfortable. For all the social faux pas that William had come to not understand in this new environment he knew that asking about the nature of one’s suicide was one of the biggest. It seemed like there was a pretty monolithic ‘don’t ask; don’t tell’ culture amongst the reapers here. William thought about his body hanging there in his study and then about one of his daughters finding it. William really needed to think about something else.</p><p>“They cut your hair,” William said, not looking up from his notes.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh did they? I hadn’t noticed,” Grelle started, but then bit his lip and looked off into the middle distance for a moment, before continuing. “Actually, wait, no. Did it not perhaps occur to you that I might have chosen this style? This could be a bold fashion statement. I know short hair on women isn’t exactly in right now, but maybe I’m trying to be a trendsetter? Hm?” </p><p> </p><p>“They cut your hair. You loved your hair. You conditioned it with that little pink bottle that smells like almonds and you always spent at least twenty minutes brushing it out after you’ve meticulously dried it with at least six separate fresh towels.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, that’s specific. Why do you know that about me?” Grelle’s expression shifted a little bit towards concern, then confusion.</p><p>“Because I see you in the men’s showers, and because your overconsumption of the clean towels is disrespectful to the other residents who use those showers, as is your spending all that unnecessary time occupying a shower stall. All to make your hair look pretty.” Grelle was quiet and broke eye contact. He looked a little uncomfortable for a moment and then his expression softened.</p><p> </p><p>“You think my hair is pretty?” Grelle said, his voice different from his usual bombastic tremolo, it was quieter and filled with what was unmistakably hope. William thought he might have even been blushing, but he couldn’t really tell underneath the caked foundation covering his face. William didn’t know how to respond. As quickly as the change had come over Grelle he was back to his normal flamboyant self only he was looking at William like he was really seeing him for the first time. “Oh Will! I had no idea you felt that way for me, I must say looking at you now I had never considered just what a striking figure you make, I sure hope there are no other ladies in your life, I’d hate to feel like just another one of your sexual conquests, in fact I’m sure that you do, you’re a real handsome man Will, I just know all of the other girls in our class must be falling for you,” Grelle prattled on and on like this and at that moment William would give just about anything to make him shut up.</p><p> </p><p>“I <em> thought </em> your hair looked pretty,” William interrupted, “Now it doesn’t look like much of anything.” Grelle deflated a little, which made William feel something he wasn’t quite sure of. This time the awkward silence worked against him. “Why did they cut your hair?” </p><p> </p><p>“Well, my dear sweet Will. As it turns out the faculty doesn’t like that I don’t act like a ‘real man’ is supposed to. It seems they have a lot in common with my father in that respect. Him and, really, every other person I ever knew,” Grelle said with more than a hint of bitterness, absentmindedly running his fingers over his scalp as he continued to gaze longingly at William. “Apparently, and I didn’t know this so they really can’t blame me, men are not supposed to wish they were girls.” </p><p>“Sutcliff,” William addressed him, becoming more exhausted by the minute talking to this man,“Why ever would you want to be a girl?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. I wish I knew, Will. If I knew what part of my brain made me want to be a girl, made me love men like you, I wouldn’t hesitate to carve it out with a spoon. All I know is that I want to be a girl, and I can’t die so I have no choice but to try to be one as hard as I can until maybe it just works,” Grelle said with that same bitterness but now also with what felt like a certain amount of relief, like this was something he had never talked about to anyone. Grelle continued at the look of perplexion on William’s face. “Maybe inside, right, I just am one, and me being like this is just a way to make that real to other people too.”</p><p> </p><p>Could that happen? Could a person be the wrong gender? Could someone’s soul be a gender that wasn’t that of their body? William couldn’t even begin to imagine what that might be like.</p><p> </p><p>Instead William imagined what he would have done if his son had come to him and said that he wanted to dress like his sisters, that he wished he were his daughter, that he longed for the day he’d marry a man and be a good wife. He thought about what he’d do if his son had grown out his hair, would he cut it? Would he make him wear boys clothes? Would he have done the same to any of his other daughters?</p><p> </p><p>What if Grelle had never spoken up that day, or if he did and had sounded like the woman he wanted to be? If someone looked like a woman and acted like a woman and no one knew any different then what did it matter if their body was male?</p><p> </p><p>There were those in their class who had insisted on using feminine pronouns for Grelle, in spite of everything. Or perhaps because of everything. Grelle... She was a woman just being herself, despite her rather abrasive personality she still deserved the basic respect that all of God’s creatures deserve. Equal protection under the institutions of man and psychopomp alike. And people had laughed at her like she was some kind of joke, just for being what she was.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t fair, William had read all seven thousand two hundred seventy one pages of the Reaper Guidelines Document and Grelle’s long hair was strictly within regulation. Grelle was one of the most vulnerable people he’d ever seen. William had become an attorney because it let him brush with the underbelly of society, which he had told himself he did to let him feel superior. But, he was always terrible at lying to himself. He did it because he had a soft spot for hopeless cases, for people who had no one else on their side. Eventually defending the helpless had become almost an addiction, it was the only time that he could really feel good about himself. So much so that it furthered his neglect of his wife and children. So much that it had become a contributing factor to him standing on the chair in his study. William made a decision in that moment, whatever happened and whatever came of their relationship, good or ill, Grelle needed an advocate and William would be that advocate. She needed someone on her side.</p><p> </p><p>If Grelle was a woman then that explained the strange attraction William had been feeling towards her which he was completely unable to acknowledge until now. Oh wow, he had watched her shower, and even admitted as such. </p><p> </p><p>“Grelle, I am sorry that I watched you in the shower, that was not appropriate of me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, I hardly mind at all, my sweet Will. Truly the attention is not unwelcome, not from such a handsome man.”</p><p> </p><p>“Still, It wasn’t gentlemanly of me to look upon a woman as she bathed. Even if you were forced to use the men’s shower.”</p><p> </p><p>Grell broke out into a massive grin at the acknowledgement of her womanhood which melted William’s heart. But thinking about how it only made her so happy because that basic dignity was denied her broke his heart. Maybe he needed to do better by the women in his life.</p><p> </p><p>He wondered if it was appropriate to date colleagues here. There were no rules against it but as always the social moores perplexed him. Honestly he didn’t care.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The chapter title is an excerpt from a Cats Millionaire song called Who Is The Girl I Met Amongst The Falling Cherry Blossoms that she wrote about Prunus Girl which I believe she was so embarrassed about that she deleted all trace of it off the internet.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. And What You've Given Is No Release</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grelle was in ~LOVE~</p><p> </p><p>She’d met this guy on the roof one day after she’d gone up there to see if her survival before might have been a fluke. But now for the first time in her life she had a little bit of hope, and she didn’t wish she was dead constantly. Now they spent all their lunches up there chatting and laughing, well she did most of the laughing, and the chatting, and her eyes didn’t linger on the roof’s edge more than once or twice a day.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t really know what they were together, but they were definitely something. He treated her like a proper gentleman would treat a lady. In life, even if she had been born a woman, she’d still have been way below the station of someone like him. So she was forced to concede there were a few perks to how things had sorted out.</p><p> </p><p>They kissed but every time she tried to go further, she’d smack face first into a brick wall. He was a very traditional man who didn’t seem to think that anything other than kissing, with only a little bit of tongue she found out to her chagrin, was appropriate before marriage. She didn’t even know if marriages could happen in this place and she was almost certain that if they did they wouldn’t be allowed between the two of them. She tried explaining as much to William but he was properly neurotic. She supposed it came with the territory of being a reaper. She was forward, but she didn’t want to press him too hard, she’d only just managed to catch this little bit of sunlight in her hands and she was afraid of scaring it off.</p><p> </p><p>Now she found herself sitting next to him in class and looking up at him on the bleachers while she whaled on the pathetic competition in her physical education. He went out of his way to correct people when they called her a man, and he’d delivered a very effective argument on her behalf when the faculty tried to get her to stop wearing makeup. He’d even had diagrams and reference material, lots of real professional looking courtroom stuff, the thought of him putting in all that work on her behalf made her swoon. Unfortunately the rules or whatever were very explicit about her not being able to wear the women’s uniform according to him. Some parts of the suit had kinda grown on her and as long as she could wear her lipstick and eyeliner she’d survive. He had similar luck with the shower situation, and as a conciliation he’d keep a look out for her so that she could have a little privacy. It wasn’t the biggest deal to her, but she loved him all the same for it. No one else ever even came close to doing as much for her as he did. She tried introducing him to some of the other reapers she’d befriended but he was, well shy was the wrong word for it, perhaps a bit too reserved for their lot. </p><p> </p><p>He had taken a long time to open up to her, and he had actually <em> wanted </em> to be her friend. She couldn’t imagine just how hard it would have been for someone who he didn’t have a crush on. She found out he had been married in life after months of probing into his background, she worried that it might mean their relationship was doomed from the start but he assured her that “till death do us part,” was legally binding. Other than that and the fact that he had been an attorney she really didn’t know anything about the man. She didn’t mind so much and he was more than an attentive listener when she talked about herself.</p><p> </p><p>After almost half a year she decided that her hair had finally grown out enough to be styled a little bit more femininely and she managed to coax him into her bedroom to help her dye it red like she’d been dreaming of ever since her first day here.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She was bouncing up and down with excitement as he produced the small red box he’d bought from the commissary. It wasn’t typical that a gentleman would participate in a lady’s grooming ritual but Will supposed there wasn’t much about their relationship or circumstances that was typical. She had taken several towels from communal bathrooms and strewn them all across the surfaces of the room. He caught himself before chiding the woman on the excessive use of company property, he needed to, as she put it “chill the fuck out about rules and shit, man,” and while he didn’t agree he was putting in the effort to change for her.</p><p> </p><p>He could tell she could tell and he appreciated it more than he knew how to tell her.</p><p> </p><p>He read the instructions while she impatiently looked over his shoulder. There were quite the number of steps, and he was anything but an apothecary so he really wanted to do this right. He started mixing bottles together on the small standard issue work surface that came with every new reaper’s dormitory room. Some of it fizzed when he mixed them together; it all smelled like chemicals and he opened the window to make sure they weren’t poisoning themselves. He had quickly gotten used to not breathing within the first few days of his arrival, but his girlfriend was amongst the majority of the incoming class that found not breathing unnatural. As he turned back towards her he jumped in surprise when he saw her topless. Her chest still resembled a man’s in many respects but it was smooth and hairless and it made him blush irregardless.</p><p> </p><p>“Grelle,” Will said averting his eyes, “You’re naked, please put a shirt on, this is... unbecoming.” </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to ruin my suit. Well, I actually kind of do but I can’t stand the disapproving look on the tailor’s face when he sees the scars on my arms. That and I don’t want to get a lecture from requisitions, again,” She said, she had also removed her glasses for presumably the same reason but Will didn’t see any need to comment on their absence. He actually almost never got to see her without the glasses they were all obligated to wear, she looked… softer without them, and Will wasn’t sure whether he liked that or not. She seemed a little bashful realizing that her chest made him so uncomfortable. “Here,” she said, unfocused eyes scanning the room and settling on a nearby towel, “Why don’t I wear this?” She draped the towel over her shoulders, and tilted her head to the side unable to gauge Will’s reaction.</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll do,” Will said, he hated compromises but he was also more than used to them. The stuff stopped fizzing and according to the instructions that meant it was ready. He took the stiff brush that came with the kit and dipped it into the dye before gently poking at his girlfriend's head with his hands. “Are you ready?” he asked her.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve been ready for this since I died, and then some,” she replied. He began layering the dye into her still rather short hair. It was slow going at first. While he was precise and wasn’t wholly unfamiliar with putting goop into hair he still didn’t want to mess up and stain her skin. He’d never hear the end of it. She just sat there with a big grin on her face nervously playing with a hand mirror she was too afraid to look into. He’d advised against her wearing make up since she’d need to shower out all of the dye, she had begrudgingly conceded and he knew she hated looking at her reflection without the stuff. </p><p>Will saw her sheepishly peak at her reflection, and then remember that she could hardly see a foot in front of her face. It didn’t matter her hair was hardly red, instead marred by the saturation of the thick dark goop. </p><p> </p><p>By the time he finished she was impatiently rocking back and forth in the chair. He left her alone for a moment to dispose of the chemicals and returned to find her jittery and pacing around the room. He patiently reminded her that she needed to wait at least forty five minutes before she could wash the goop out. He took her hand and sat with her. She talked about nothing much for a while, Will gently listened to the sound of her voice. Her voice was one of the few things she never seemed to complain about and he didn’t have any intention of telling her it was the one thing that had given her away on the first day they’d met. He adored the sound of it and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her away from ever talking again. He really was truly in love with the girl, for better or for worse. He felt like there were just so many things that they differed on. </p><p> </p><p>There were ways in which they just worked together, but there were quite honestly a lot of ways that they really didn’t. She’d often badger him while he was trying to study, always coming over to his dormitory room and staying later into the night than Will was comfortable with. She’d also been pressuring him into PDA even though, while he knew things were different here, he was still struck by the same Protestant repression that he’d grown up with; as guilty as he felt about it, and as wholly as he viewed her as the woman that she was, he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed when people stared at them for holding hands.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that a guy and a guy!?” One of the younger reapers had tactlessly ejaculated to his friend one day while they walked to their next class together. Grelle had shouted at the brat and Will was more than a little slow in stopping her from plunging her training scythe in his face. In life he was the kind of man that never felt the sting of bigotry, he loved women, was white, and had come from a fairly affluent family. He imagined this kind of thing was much worse on Grelle for having dealt with it her whole life, but he still couldn’t deny the toll it was taking on him, especially seeing as his own mental state was far from immaculate both before coming here and after.</p><p> </p><p>He wanted to break it off, but there was just something about the way she looked at him, eyes full of a love that had never been there in his wife’s. Besides, she needed him, more than he had ever anticipated. He was right when he had appraised her as being the most vulnerable person he’d ever seen. She had friends of her own, some of them even saw her as a woman like he did, but none of them ever really let her in the way he had, and with just how needy she was he could see why.</p><p> </p><p>She’d only managed to make it thirty minutes before she demanded to go shower the color out. He caved and escorted her to the men’s washroom. It looked like there wasn’t anyone in there and he sat by the entrance to the showers to make sure no one walked in on her. It was wrong that a lady would have to use the men’s showers, but he couldn’t fix every little injustice.</p><p> </p><p>Even though she didn’t have nearly the same amount of hair she still took a long time in the shower. Will nervously twiddled his thumbs after he heard the water turn off. He hoped she liked it, he didn’t know if he’d be able to bear Grelle going through any more hair related trauma. He heard a gentle padding behind him and turned around to see her. She wore no towel and stood bare in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>“So how do I look?” She asked. </p><p> </p><p>“Like a Goddess.” He meant it with all his heart.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was the end of their first year and the entire class was being brought out on a field trip to witness their first ever collection. Their instructor, a frizzy haired man with a wiry frame and even wiry-er glasses lead them amongst the rooftops towards a small flat on the East End that contained an elderly woman who’d pass in her sleep within the next few minutes. Grelle kept tugging on William’s arm trying to get him to sneak off with her to show him some of her old haunts or get him to show her where he used to work.</p><p> </p><p>William kept snipping at her saying he was eager to see the demonstration and not in any mood for her trouble making nonsense. She scowled and went silent. It wasn’t until they were a few rooftops away that he noticed she was gone. He thought about just leaving her to whatever she was doing before he remembered his promise to himself. That he would always watch out for her no matter what happened. He informed their instructor that she was missing and he absentmindedly gave him leave to retrieve her, too busy focused on explaining the old woman’s final moments to the class.</p><p> </p><p>William dropped down to the street, trying to trail the sickly sweet scent of her perfume the way that he’d been taught. Eventually he caught it amongst the wretched smells of the London streets, which he followed back into a dark alley. The buildings leaned into each other here and nearly blotted out the sky.</p><p> </p><p>It was dark and Grelle could barely see the thing that had cornered her. She nervously twiddled her training scythe as she waited for it to step closer. It called to her in a voice that made her sick to her stomach. It seemed like its voice was coming from a different part of the alley than it’s footfalls did. A chill ran down her spine.</p><p> </p><p>After a moment she heard a familiar set of footfalls come in from behind her, it was her boyfriend, here to chastise her for running off no doubt. She really didn’t need this right now.</p><p> </p><p>William hated demons, and not just because he was a good Christian even in death. Demons were remorseless monsters who preyed on the weak. Either predating on their souls postmortem or, much more sinisterly, finding those desperate enough to strike deals promising that their wildest wishes will be fulfilled. Offering twisted justice to those who had been failed by the institutions of man, and had given up on those offered by God. There had been parts of courses that had focused on them but they had struck his nerve so much that he’d gone on to do more independent research on them in the library when he could get a moment away from Grelle. Ultimately Grelle had wormed her way into his study sessions, and would read over his shoulder about demons. She’d never tell him but she thought demons were actually kind of hot. Genderless beings of pure avarice from the netherrealms, they had no obligations to anyone other than those that they chose to make. They got to help people’s dreams come true. She kind of wished she was one.</p><p> </p><p>Well, not necessarily at this moment, staring one down. Grelle called out to William warning him of the danger, to which he just huffed and picked up the pace. She stopped spinning her scythe and for a split second saw a red eye reflected in it’s blade. The warning gave her just the time she needed to dodge out of the way, she could feel the air where its swipe missed her and she spun around swinging her scythe to bite into empty air. At that moment she saw William’s silhouette in the gloom next to her. Without a word he stepped in close and pressed his back to hers. Grelle was momentarily distracted by just how nice and warm he felt being so close to her. Thankfully not distracted enough to parry a blow that came in out of the darkness as quick as it receded.</p><p> </p><p>The sickening voice called out, now seeing that there were two of them as they spun slowly, trailing their gaze across the ancient cobbled street to try and spot any movement.</p><p> </p><p>“Grelle, here!” William shouted as they both swung out of the way of a strike, William’s hand being fast enough to bite the tip of his scythe into the creature's forearm. He used his strength to yank the thing out of its unnatural gloom and into Grelles vision. She swiped at it as it freed itself from William’s hook and managed to rake her scythe across its torso spraying dark blood onto the ground and all over her suit. It darted back at her second swipe and managed to block William’s blow as he came in from the side. </p><p> </p><p>Grelle and William both attacked the thing at the same time, it barely managing to keep up with their strikes when they moved in unison. They backed it up against a brick wall and the thing lashed out in desperation hitting William squarely in the chest, knocking him back to stumble off balanced several yards away. The panicked attack was just the opening Grelle needed and before the thing knew what was happening she had sunken her scythe deep into its inner arm sliding it up its length hemorrhaging along its vein.</p><p> </p><p>The demon stumbled and turned towards Grelle just in time for her to bite into its other arm, ripping up its vein the same as the first. She screamed and it screamed. She slashed at the thing’s chest, stabbed at its eyes, slit open its throat and rid it down to the ground pounding her scythe into the creature's face long after it had finally perished. She screamed and screamed and screamed until she felt a hand on her shoulder and was snapped back into reality. She turned around to see the unhappy face of her William looking down at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you quite finished? I’d like to get back to the group and see if we can at least observe some of the reaping,” he said wiping at his scythe with a white handkerchief. “What the hell were you thinking Sutcliff? Seriously, I must know.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that all you have for me, after I saved your life?” She replied bitterly, rising off of the desecrated corpse of the monster, suit uncomfortably wet and sticky with its blood.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>You </em> saved <em> my </em> life? I wouldn’t even be down here if it wasn’t for that stupid impulsive hair dye attled brain of yours.” </p><p> </p><p>“You didn’t have to come after me if I’m really that much of a bother to you, my dear sweet Willy. Maybe I wanted to get my soul eaten by a demon huh? Maybe I had finally found the way out I’ve been looking for all this time?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t pull that card on me. Or did you forget that you’re not the only person who’s ever wanted to die?”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh really? I don’t know what the transsexual’s been through, huh? Though it may surprise you to learn, I’ve actually been listening to you all those times you complained about your lowly lot in life. All about just how much you truly suffer for merely existing as you do, shuffling that misery off onto me without a second thought. I’ve done nothing but be patient with you, waiting for you to grow, to get better. I’ve loved you during times when we both know you didn’t deserve it. You can’t keep acting like you’re the only one who’s hurting,” Will spat. Grelle, who had been biting back tears since the moment she’d wandered down this dark alley, finally began sobbing. Her eyes darted back and forth trying to think of some kind of retort.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, like <em> you </em> care what other people think of you. The quiet lonely William T. Spears, who never spoke to a soul until he met Grelle, the suicidal faggot. The only person pathetic enough to be his friend.”</p><p> </p><p>“You actually think you’re the only person who’s ever hurt because they weren’t seen the way they thought they ought to, huh? I’m terrified of being who I am, the quiet lonely William T. Spears. I’m terrified that people will find out I don’t think and feel the same way as everyone else. I’m terrified of people finding out what a terrible husband and father I was. I’m terrified of what people think of me now that we’ve been together, you know? But I never lay any of that on you because I know that you need me. Because I know, I know how much harder it is for you. But that’s it. I’m done with this relationship, and I’m done with you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Grelle said softly, sobs dying down replaced by a subtle weeping, “So I guess that’s it then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I guess that’s it then,” he said. Grelle just looked at the ground as her tears dropped from her face.</p><p> </p><p>They walked back to the flat in silence. William managed to at least see some of the demonstrations like he wanted. Grelle caught more stares than normal for all of the demon blood and snot and tears she was covered in. But she was more than used to it by now.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They’d go on to avoid each other until the final days before their graduation when they’d be forced together on one last assignment.</p><p> </p><p>They’d get back together again one day and break apart again afterwards.</p><p> </p><p>They’d continue to do so until one or both of them managed to change.</p><p> </p><p>They’d eventually get married; but it wouldn’t be for many, many decades.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic has a technical sequel in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030375">Hand Me Down My Suit And Tie</a> in so far as it's the same Grelle with the same William decades later, but I won't officially list it as such to keep people's eyes from glazing over lest they feel obligated to read this first.</p><p>Update: It also has a midquel named <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724823">Navel-Gazing.</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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